Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference has lost 4 members in the last 3 years to have members drop football. Siena, St. John's, Fairfield, and Canisius.

Questions

Duquesne has made inquires into Patriot, Pioneer, Big South and Northeast Conference do they leave?

Does this mean that MAAC is done as a Conference?

Aren't they part of the Atlantic 10 in BBall whyn't football?

If anybody has any insight on this please post it. I was reading street & smiths college football annual. Thanks fbg

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The Atlantic 10 is the top football conference in I-AA...full scholarship programs, above average facilities, etc. MAAC football is "mid-major" I-AA. The only reason why they are considered D1 sis becasue the NCAA mandates that if you participate in D1 for basketball or other sports, ALL sports must be D1. The MAAC is essentially D2 level football. The Pioneer is non-scholarship and considered more like D3. Duquesene's program and facilities are no where near that of the other A10 football members.

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Repeating fbg's quest for info.

It looks like the MAAC currently has 3 remaining FB members: Iona, Marist and St. Peters.

Duquesne and LaSalle of the A-10 are FB only members (giving a total of 5 for the FB league...)
Don't you need 6 to be viable ?

I had heard a few months back, that Duquesne and LaSalle had made inquiries about moving their FB programs to the Patriot League (which would seem to be a decent geographical fit for them).

Anybody heard anything ? I almost think the Patriot and MAAC FB are ripe for a merger, but that's just me...

Generally you won't hear any official announcements about a school leaving a drowing ship, until it's official, so that may explain the dearth of media coverage on this.

Please post any relevant links. Thanks.

While its success in the MAAC would seem to point it towards membership in the Patriot League, I'm not sure that the academics would be acceptable. At least when Towson was added, this expansion allowed the PL to obtain its first automatic bid (1997). Since that time, an additional member was added (Georgetown, formerly of the MAAC) and I believe they have struggled mightily (not to say that DU's performance would necessarily mirror Georgetown's)...

I'm much less certain of LaSalle than I am Duquesne...

Perhaps the Patriot League should add VMI as an all-sports member...

The natural progression of non-scholarship I-AA would seem to point towards some MAAC-NEC merger, especially since these conferences have a prior relationship centered around the ECAC Bowl and both are post-reform conferences (as is the PFL)...

Mr. Ouija.

Thanks.

I thought if you needed 6 to be recognized as a conference by NCAA, that all the remaining 5 teams would be scrambling to re-align themselves, and I was curious as to why there was so little mention of this among MAAC members.

I believe Duquesne just lost their head coach, he's moving a mile down the road to become one of Wannstedt's assistants at Pitt.

I agree that the MAAC and NEC merging their football operations would be a good fit. These two conferences almost look like they were joined at the hip.

I'm not sure what "NCAA recognition" brings to a non-scholarship I-AA conference like the MAAC. While the (pre-1993) non-scholarship Patriot League currently receives an automatic bid to the the I-AA Playoffs, the eight-member NEC and nine-member PFL do not....

NEC Football began as a 'sub rosa' conference, and the Big South has been 'sub rosa' since its formation...

I looked on Duquesne's site, and it mentioned that in 2003, they were declared the top 1-AA mid-major.

What the hell is a "D-1AA mid-major" ? Is that the same as D-1AA non-scholarship league (such as Patriot, MAAC, NEC, Pioneer) ? Sort of a confusing term, since they would seem to be the bottom rung of D-1AA. Maybe it's along the lines of labelling all condoms as "large" - Even if you're not big, pretend you are !!!


Do the "D-1AA mid-majors" play some sort of championship between themselves ?

I can believe that the non-scholarship schools may not concern themselves too much with the entire conference thing. They MAY just want to have an established schedule of teams to play against, and go out and play them, and when the game is over, they don't over-analyze rankings or things like that.

There is one big driver to be in D-1 - access to the NCAA BB tourney (or a share of the money that comes to every D-1 conference). Probably other than that, some schools have a rather small-time mentality with regard to other sports... It's got to vary form school to school.

Yeah, "mid-major" isn't really a football term, especially in terms of I-AA...theoretically in D-I basketball, there are "high-major" conferences (e.g. ACC), "mid-major" conferences (e.g. West Coast Conference), and "low-major" (e.g. Big South Conference)...applying the terminology to I-AA, the "original six" would be "high-major," the Big South, Patriot League/Ivy League and MEAC/SWAC "mid-major," and the MAAC, NEC, and PFL "low-major"...

The death of MAAC (non-scholarhip FCS) football may be imminent.

Earlier this year Duquesne (an A-10 team playing football) announced they would add FB scholarhips and move their FB program to the NEC.

Last week, St. Peters announced they were abruptly pulling the plug on FB (cancelling games that were scheduled for less than 3 months from now).

SO the MAAC football league is down to 3 (Marist and Iona, and LaSalle (another guest from the A-10)). They are no doubt pondering their next move.

Last Thurday 6/14/07, Pioneer (the other Non-scholarship FCS league) commisioner Patty Viverito comducted a summit meeting for non-scholarship Division I FCS schools and wannabes in Chicago. No details yet. But probably several proposals were thrown out about getting all these schools under one umbrella, where they could play for a championshp.

Reportedly invited were the 8 Pioneer schools, Campbell (which I think is a Pioneer applicant), the MAAC schools, and anyone interested in non-scholly FCS. The last group reportedly included Detroit Mercy, Evansville, (Mercer or Lipscomb ?), maybe Bryant and / or some other D-II schools pondering a move-up.

If anyone has any details on the outcome of the summit meeting, please post.

Thanks.

Lipscomb appears to be making noise about it. I couldn't find anything on Mercer.

A school moving up from Division II interested in non-scholarship football needs to really reconsider whether moving up to Division I is in the school's best interest.

It would be a tad big at 15 schools, but the Pioneer League could have a workable two-division alignment in 2008:

North - Detroit Mercy, Butler, Valparaiso, Dayton, Drake, Marist, Iona, LaSalle
South - Evansville, Morehead State, Lipscomb, Campbell, Davidson, San Diego, Jacksonville

Morehead State (OVC) and San Diego (Great West) seem to be somewhat of a defection risk. ETSU (no football program, Atlantic Sun) and South Alabama (no football program, Sun Belt) may also be eventual expansion candidates.

So the latest that I have heard is that the MAAC FB schools (minus St. Peters, who abruptly dropped football that very day) attended Non-Scholarship Summit, in Chicago on June 14th.

Duquesne had already announced a move to the NEC, so they didn't go... It was Marist, Iona, and LaSalle (a guest MAAC FB team from the A-10) attending. Reportedly, they asked to join the PFL. No action was taken (perhaps not necesasrily a "no", but that the PFL members wanted to ponder the situation a bit, and weren't prepared to vote on those 3 yet.

Reportedly (I have seen no confirmation, but my computer won't let me go to the pop-up laden blog page, where Matt posts his news items), Campbell (a previous applicant to the PFL) was extended an invitation (they are ramping up for FB, and I think perhaps are targeting 2009 ?)

If the Campbell rumor is true, the PFL would have SD way out west, Drake, Butler, Valpo, Morehead, Dayton in the mid-west, and Davidson, Jacksonville, Campbell down south.

IF the MAAC schools were invited, the obvious move would be to have two 6-team divisions E-W, with Marist, Iona, LaSalle, Davidson, Jacksonville, and Campbell in the East. The current "Grid-iron Classic" (non-scholarship "Championship") could be replaced by a Pioneer League Championship between the top teams in the East and West Divisions.

This may yet come about after some further pondering by the current PFL members..... There may be no urgency on this matter until they need to form schedules for the season in which Campbell is ready to go...

If anyone has come across links to relevant stories on this matter, please post in this thread. Thanks.

LaSalle yesterday announced that they are terminating their football program, effective immediately.

So the remnants of MAAC football conference is down to 2 -
Marist & Iona.

Rumor has it, that at the Pioneer Football League "Summit" this summer, a proposal was made to expand the Pioneer to 12 (2 divisions of 6) by adding football start-up Campbell, along with MAAC refugees Marist & Iona & LaSalle (LaSalle is an A-10 member, but played football in the non-scholarship MAAC league).

These potential additions to the non-scholarship Pioneer League were to be acted upon sometime in November...
Campbell is gung-ho about joining, in fact they had previously made an application to the PFL.

With LaSalle dropping football, this expansion will end up with some number less than 12.... stay tuned.

Update: Iona and Marist will compete as FCS independents for 2008, and Marist will join the Pioneer League in 2009 to bring that league to 10 teams. Iona will likely someday end up there or in the Patriot League FB, or they could drop football altogether.

Blog article out of Albany(previously posted on another thread) with comments from MAAC Commish who would like to add La Salle,Holy Cross,and Fordham to the MAAC but none of these schools has shown any interest.Therefore,he doesn't believe that there will be any MAAC moves in the near future.Link at http://blog.timesunion.com/collegesport ... -maac/3965

I would assume Holy Cross is fairly comfortable in the Patriot League. They are in a conference with like-minded schools with which one could argue they have rivalries with. I would be very surprised if Holy Cross up and left

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